Welcome to the Painting Challenge. Here you will find the fabulous, fevered work from miniature painters from around the world. While participants come from every colour, gender, age and nationality, they have at least three things in common: they love miniatures, enjoy a supportive community and they have all taken the Challenge.
This site features the current year's event along with the archives of past Challenges.
Enjoy your visit and remember to come back soon.

Sections

Wednesday, 18 March 2015

For our final post, we present sixteen soldiers from the BEF of 1914 and 1915. Half of which are kilted Highlanders and the other half being British troops wearing gas masks. The figures (again from Renegade Miniatures) were excellent to work with, and required minimum cleaning! Finding the proper shade of uniform was a challenge however, everyone on the internet seemed to have a different theory over the colour of their kit. What I ended up finding was that Commonwealth troops normally had a more green-kaki uniform, while the colour of the British Uniform evidently was a deep brown-kaki (can anyone confirm this?). Hopefully this will be the beginning of a Black Watch unit and an English Unit of some kind.The Gas Team.

And The Highlanders.

It has been an excellent challenge and my brother and I hope to do this again next year!

Thank you to Curt for the invitation and to everyone for the warm welcome!

From Curt:Great work boys! I've always like the early-war British uniform, with its characterful soft hats and tams, before the mandatory implementation of the tin hat. I especially like the Highlanders with their kilts and broad, flat tams.

These figures are especially poignant as we near the centenary of the first use of poison gas on the Western Front (April 22nd 1915, if memory serves). The French Algerians and Canadians were exposed to drift-release chlorine gas that day. The worse-hit Algerians broke, but the Canadians managed to hold their position by urinating into rags and wrapping them around their faces (the amonia in urine helps to negate the chlorine). They held the line and even managed to counterattack, helping to stabilize the front.

Again, an excellent entry Grant and Evan. I'm absolutely delighted that you enjoyed the Challenge and I hope we see both your work again in the future. Well done!

Many folks are sprinting to the finish with some impressive submissions - great work everyone! For my part, I'm just trying to knock off a few spares that were sitting around the painting table before the Painting Challenge concludes. In that spirit I present a Lord Marshal for my Warhammer 30k Solar Auxilia Force.

Nice cloak - and note the power cables connected to his snobby staff

The Lord Marshal is a supreme HQ figure for the Solar Auxilia. Of course, Forge World has yet to release a figure to represent one in the range, but astute 40k types and Imperial Guard fans will recognize this miniature as the special character "Solar Macharius", which I think GW issued seven or eight years ago. This is a 28mm metal figure (remember those?) from GW.

Remember metal figures? I sure miss them...I guess I'm a grouch

"Solar Macharius" was intended to be a super-duper senior command special character for the GW Imperial Guard faction. His backstory was not particularly imaginative and easily forgotten - basically he was really good at spending the lives of his men well organized attritional military action, and through this capacity is thought of as a "great" commander. I would chalk this up to Warhammer 40k's dystopian setting, but real history is littered with many such "great" commanders.

Cloak made from endangered space caribou pelts, no doubt

When Forge World released the Solar Auxilia, I immediately thought of this figure as a suitable senior command model, and tracked one down on eBay (it took a while to find one with a suitable price). I quite like the douchebag aspect of this figure - super ornate armour, a staff with a freaking bust at the tip - which is "plugged in" to something no less, implying a possible use as a weapon or force field. The prissy cloak, the big sword, the heavy pistol, the whacky helmet - I love it. I doubt he could even lift the sword!

Waiting to be cut in half by a Traitor Legion Marine

In the 30k rules they try to talk up the "Lord Marshal" as some kind of bad-ass commander, but I imagine him to be much more of a politically-connected REMF-type figure from the Imperium's pre-Horus Heresy era. While his Solar Auxilia regiment makes a grim last stand in the face of assaults by Traitor Legion Marines, this asshat is preparing PowerPoint servitor presentations about "Force Paradigm Shifts" and worrying about getting the proper leave codes entered into SAP. After all, what sort of twonk would dress like this anywhere ever in any era, much less near a battlefield?As a single 28mm figure, this guy will net me five points. Not much, but it all counts!

From Curt:

I love this guy Greg! Beautiful paintwork, especially on his bronze armour and his command staff. I think your last (hilarious) paragraph pretty much seals his fate on the tabletop. I have a suspicion he will be experiencing, first hand, some 'blue-on-blue' fire.Well done mon ami!

After my mini flurry into Napoleonic's, I'm back onto my fav the Nine Years War!! I painted the French Guard earlier on in the Challenge, so I thought it only proper to paint up the other Guard infantry in the French army. The Gardes Suisses. The Guards fought at Mons 1691, Namur and Steenkirke both 1692.

The figures are of course from Essex minis, while the flags are from Maverick!. Like my previous Guard regt, All three figures on the front of the command stand have lost their original heads, they were all British Grenadiers once upon a time.........

From Curt:Back to Nine Years War? You're absolutly incorrigible Rousell! (But we wouldn't have it any other way) Seriously, lovely work Ray. Those red coats with the black hats are as sharp as tacks and your paintwork is incredibly crisp as well (and good conversions to boot). Beautiful stuff Mr. Badger!

Yes there is a unit of figures influenced
by Michael York, and no it features neither Zeppelins nor Musketeers!

So the end of winter is upon us, and even
the frozen Canadian prairies are feeling spring like. Here’s my last entry to the Challenge Version
5, 12 Italian wars foot in 28mm based on the Perry’s plastics and metals. There are 4 Genoese Crossbowmen to complete
the unit to its full 12-man strength plus 8 Italian swordsmen representing the
start of a new unit, to be finished after the Challenge is over.

The 4 crossbowmen are pretty much straight
out of the Plastic boxes. They appear along with the swordsmen above, and with the rest of the unit below.

I believe that
there is one foot knight holding a standard and the rest are mercenaries. The heads all come from one of the two boxes
but damn it if I can remember which head comes from which box. The flag is paper, printed from a file found
on the Web and represents a flag flown by French Genoese allies at Marignano in
1515. I had planned to use another
fabric flag like my recent entries, but I put my sheets of flags in that dreaded
location “somewhere safe where it won’t get damaged or lost”. Well I think we know what happened there….

Capuleti’s Swordsmen are a combination of
full figures and bits and pieces from the body part farm. Various component parts are as follows:

·Plastic arms with swords (and
matching left arms) from the Mercenary’s command stand and the foot knights
boxed sets

·Plastic sword arms (and
matching left arms) from GW Empire state troops box set. They match up pretty well once you trim down
the GW meat cleaver swords. The GW torsos are too beefy to mix and match with Perry’s but the arms work fine
especially as puffy and slashed sleeves hide a multitude of sins (I picked this tip up vis the Lead Adventure Forum and other bloggers).

On the whole I am quite pleased with the
unit. I started out wanting swordsmen
using Perry Oval shields but along the way the oval shields morphed into
bucklers and the broadswords became two handers and Main Gauche in a few
cases. For the next swordsmen unit (the
Montechhi), I’ll go with the lighter armoured figures as they have a better
look to my eyes.

While these were in process, my wife
commented that the Yellow and Scarlet themed livery was bright, but she acknowledged that they
were bright historically. I used a raw
umber wash to dull things down a bit and add shading, but I do have a
historical precedent to the unit. The Capuleti and Montecchi families were
based in Verona and involved in blood feuds until certain members were exiled
when the fighting got too bloody. I have speculated on an exiled Capuleti founding a condottiero company and passing this on to his decedents.

Sound
familiar…well you may recall some of this from your high school English class. The Bard changed the names and I toyed with
the outcome a bit but there you go. And that gives us the Michael York link, via the Zefferelli Romeo and Juliet (IMHO it kicks the tights clad butts of all other R&Js). It’s
long clip but it’s a great fight scene and easily the second
best part of the movie. And yes the Capulet livery was the influence, Montecchi's swordsmen will be in various shades of blue.

From Curt:Ooh! I forgot about this movie - how very cool, now I must go find it (along with that old zeppelin movie of his). Wonderful work Peter! You are really rockin' it with this new Italian Wars project. I like the mix and match of body/weapon bits, especially the great tip on the GW Empire swordsmen. The yellow and red is a great colour combo too. Great stuff here. Thank you my friend for joining us again this year. I always enjoy your often whacky theme entries and admire your single minded focus regarding your new projects. I'll see you, glass in hand, at the tabletop...

Just managed to squeeze in a last couple of submissions this week to get me to my 2000 point goal. First up, another unit of 14 Late Romans. These are intended as part of a late fifth-century British army, where what I'm going for is the look of some Romanised urban militia and the remnants of some units of limitanei who probably continue to live with their families in the old Roman forts and associated settlements, eg on Hadrian's Wall, but certainly had nothing to do with any central Roman administration any more.

The shield design is that of the Exculcatores iuniores Britanniciani, an auxilia unit listed in the Notitia Dignitatum as under the command of the magister peditum in the west. It is highly implausible that any unit of limitanei in Britain had this shield, but maybe members of the auxilia palatina unit, who were probably originally from or stationed in Britain provided the original cadre for some continuing semi-professional post Roman unit? maybe I just liked painting the shield design??

Anyway, unlike the other post-Romans I've painted so far in the Challenge, these men are in the thick of combat. Figures are from Black Tree Design, Gripping Beast and Artizan, including a couple of plastic GB Dark Ages warriors with metal heads and shields from Westwind.

And finally, two pulp heroines for a friend, from Pulp Figures (the redhead) and Artizan.

They are destined for a shadow box, hence the odd basing.

And with that, Comrades of the Brush, I take my leave from the 5th Panting Challenge, with thanks to Curt and to everyone for the inspiring entries, competition and banter.

These three 28mm metal miniatures are made by “Pulp Figures” and can be bought as code PLT10 Killer Apes from the manufacturer's Lost Worlds and Lost Tribes range.Having superglued them all on to “Games Workshop” 40mm round bases I gave each model an double undercoat of “Citadel” Abaddon Black before heavily dry-brushing each with “Vallejo” Heavy Charcoal.

This off-black paint really highlighted all the wonderful detail of Bob Murch’s
sculpting. So I additionally used this colour to pick out all the dark areas of
flesh on the primates’ hands, feet, chests and face. Once dry the Charcoal was clearly
a little too contrastingly stark to the ‘pure’ black undercoat I’d used, so I
washed the models with “Citadel” Nuln Oil to help blend it all in together.

Finally I ‘picked out’ the fingers, toes and brows with some more “Vallejo”
Heavy Charcoal and finished off the ‘pulp monsters’ by highlighting their eyes
with a spot of “Citadel” Abaddon Black.

From Curt:

I love these apes Simon - very cool. I have some from another manufacturer (Impact Miniatures?) but I think I need a set of these as well. I particularly like the fellow that is posed on his knuckles with an arched back, a classic silhouette.

I had to turn my back on the Challenge for the last two months to make the final push on my MA thesis, which happily went to the external reader today. However, during these months I was able to snatch the odd hour to work on some figures, and my final entry for the Challenge is a selection of Union and Confederate infantry.

These are vintage Old Glory 28mm figures, the remnants of a bag of Hood's Texas Brigade that I bought about ten years ago. I think these figures may be OOP now. I had 12 figures left, enough for a four stand unit, which will get its banner the next time I place an order with either GMB or The Flag Dude.

The commander is a very dramatic fellow. His sword broke off so I sawed off his hand and glued on a hand with a sabre from a Perry Brothers box of plastic ACW cavalry.

I find Old Glory a rather dated line, but I like the fact that the figures seem tough and scrawny - they remind me of the famous quote about Jackson's troops during the Antietam campaign, that they looked like a pack of lean and hungry gray wolves.

I also had 8 Old Glory figures from another pack ordered years ago, infantry with slouch hats and knapsacks. I decided to paint these up as Federals, since most Rebs carried their few possessions in a blanket roll. With their black hats they can either flesh out my Iron Brigade units or serve as Sherman's Bummers out West. I am not happy with the blue of the sack coats, it seems a little too dark and too purple.

Finally, here are 8 Renegade figures, which I painted up as test figures. I would have liked to have completed the whole box, but 8 was all I had time for. I quite like these figures, but it was slow going giving them a variety of shades of grey, tan and butternut. I'm glad to see that Renegade figures are back in production, I would like more of them.

So, 28 28mm figures gives me, I think, 140 points, which will be my final Challenge entry and will get me over my target total.

It's been a pleasure being part of this and seeing all your inspired work. I look forward to going through the last six weeks of entries and catching up on what I missed.

Cheers, MikeP

From Curt:

I knew you'd be very busy with your writing Mike so I'm absolutely delighted that you could squeak in an entry to pip your target before we switched the lights off for this year' Challenge. Very nice work here Padre. I too really like the scrawny look of the Old Glory sculpts - they work especially well with the Confederates I think. I quite like the look of those Renegade figures as well as they, conversely, have a nice heft to them. Thanks so much for participating this year Mike, it's always a pleasure seeing your work and reading your thoughtful comments. Best of luck in your thesis defense but I'm positive you won't need it. I look forward to you basking in your upcoming Master-ness!

This entry is a surprise to me. I used part of my tax refund to order a squadron of Imperial Japanese Navy ships for task for US ships to scrimmage. Naval games are fun and at 1/2400 scale very portable making them a great set to have in reserve for those nights when another game falls through. I was stunned when these arrived yesterday as I had only ordered them on Friday from Panzerschiffe. Needless to say they are fast to paint up needing only a little scrapping.

First up two Kongo class ships some call them Battle Cruisers others Battleships they were a British design but were rebuilt in the 1927.

The First is the Kirishima which went up against the USS Washington(part of my US fleet) and lost of Savo Island

Her Sister ship Hiei was sailing with Kirishima on that fateful night.

I did my best to research IJN color but found only a few pictures so these colors are highly speculative. Above is the Hiei the dark gray on the lower deck is to distinguish her from her sister ship

Note the Lighter gray on the Kirishima' main deck.

The preferred view of a Japaneses battle ship from the USN perspective (moving away)

Cruisers carried the bulk of surface combat in the South Pacific I have 2 Light Cruisers (on the flanks) and 4 Heavy Cruisers in the centre. The IJN frequently had cruiser Squadrons made of different classes so each of my six cruisers is of a different class

Agano was a class that was launched after the start of the war and was one of the most modern designs. 8 Torpedoes in centre line tubes give these guys a dangerous punch. The 9 152mm main battery guns are smaller than their US counterparts but still dangerous

Nagara an older class from the 1920s by the second World War she is almost an large destroyer with 7 140mm (5.5 inches) guns along the centre line. Again 8 Torpedoes provide the main punch.

Takao here we have a true heavy weight with 10 Eight inch guns (in 5 twin turrets) and 16 Long Lance Torpedoes. This is the most heavily armed cruiser in the IJN the ship was perhaps a bit to top heavy for its size.

Mogami The Mogami Class takes the prize for most egregious and blatant violation of the Washington Naval Treaty. This monster was said to be under 10000 tuns but was actually 13000 and while designed with 6 inch guns they were replaced with 8 inch guns. They also had 12 Long Lance Torpedoes. Like the Takao it suffered form a top heavy design. Ships of these classes were active in the water off Guadalcanal which is the era I find most interesting for gaming.

4 Matsu Class Destroyers Once again I have painted the different sections of the super structure or deck a darker gray for identification. These are a War time class built to counter Sub but Destroyers are small enough at this scale you can use them for other classes... just squint and they look right trust me.

So I don't know how Curt will score these. There are 2 Battle ships 4 heavy and 2 Light Cruisers, and finally the 4 destroyers for 12 ships of 1/2400 scale in all. I don't know if I will base these as I have found the bases of my US ships nothing but a hindrance. Any way since when I ordered them I had no idea they would arrive in time to be used I am happy to take what ever Curt judges to be the right number of points.

From Curt:Nice! We play a lot of microscale naval in our group so seeing these makes me smile. I find Panzerschiffe's stuff to be fairly minimalist but their castings seem to capture the salient details of the ship silhouettes. I particularly like the tone of yellow you used for their decks as understand that the Japanese used a linoleum material for their upper decking. Very cool.

What rules are you using for your naval games Adam? We use General Quarters III and Fleet Action Imminent (for WWI) and quite enjoy the game they give. Great work!